Habitual mask-wearing is likely helping Japan, Singapore and South Korea bring daily Omicron deaths down, epidemiologists say

As the mask mandate debate rages on in Australia, epidemiologists and medical specialists suggest looking to countries where citizens are perfectly happy to wear them to see how powerful the simple infection-control measure can be. Nearly two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, countries where mask-wearing is a cultural norm are seeing some signs of success as the persistent Omicron sub-variants spread throughout their communities. University of Otago public health professor and epidemiologist Michael Baker said underlying the widespread acceptance of masks in some countries was a sense of personal responsibility to protect others from COVID-19. 'I'm looking at the countries that appear, on paper, to be keeping their mortality very low … despite having lots of circulating virus, and it's basically the Asian countries, particularly Japan, South Korea, Singapore,' he said.